Finch says Cornell chose 30 years because thatis amount of time many federal agencies waitbefore releasing their papers.

Columbia, which is in the early stages oforganizing its archives, also has a 30-year rule,although an official there says an effort isunderway to lessen that restriction.

"I happen to think 30 is way too conservative,"says the official, who spoke on condition ofanonymity. "So you could say I disagree withHarvard's rule."

Scholars label the University of Pennsylvania'spolicy, which was adopted in 1990, as one of themost progressive. According to Penn archivesdirector Mark Lloyd almost all university recordsbecome public after 25 years, excepting individualeducation records of living students, individualemployee records and documents which have beenrestricted by their donors.

Not all Ivy League schools have such openpolicies. Taking their lead form Harvard, Yale andPrinceton also close the records of theirgoverning boards for 50 years. But accessing otherrecords at those universities is still easier thandoing so at Harvard.

Yale has a 20-year rule on presidential andmost administrative papers, according toUniversity archivist Richard V. Szary. AtPrinceton, there is no set time limit for release;archivists and administrators evaluate requestsfor documents on a case by case basis, withindividual departments setting various standardsfor release.

"My standard rule of thumb is to get thedepartments and deans to agree to a 20-to 25-yeardelay," says Ben Primer, who runs Princeton'sarchives. "Not everyone is willing to do that,however. Until the trustees establish some generalpolicies, I have to go with what the departmentheads want."

Primer says that Harvard's policy influencesthe thinking of Princeton and other universities,inflating limits on university archiveseverywhere.

"I wish Harvard's policies were different,"Primer says, "because it would make somedifference in our policies."

No Ivory Tower

Schrecker, the Yeshiva University historian whowrote No Ivory Tower, says the Universitywas uncooperative in giving her access todocuments that were 40 or even 45 years old.

Her book, she says, suffered because the50-year rule made it difficult for her to evaluateand to contextualize the decisions Harvard madeduring the McCarthy era.

"What I was interested in was not so much wholooks good, who's right," Schrecker says. "What Iwas interested in was the quality of thedecision-making. As a historian, I was especiallyinterested in what were the issues--what didpeople think was important--with this at thetime."

Schrecker suggests a "20- or 25-year rule"because "that amount is enough to transfersomething from a current case into history."

"To legislate a longer period of time thanthat," she says, "is just Harvard exceptionalism,again."